Poland reveals its winter wonders

I’d been in Zakopane for less than two hours and already I was a little nonplussed. I’d fully expected Poland’s top ski resort to be a little less modern than its Alpine counterparts. What I hadn’t expected was for my journey to the slopes to be Dobbin-powered. As the driver whispered sweet nothings into his horse’s ear, I wondered whether this trip to test Poland’s premier pistes had been such a bright idea after all.

I needn’t have worried. The sleigh that Alan – managing director of an operation called Sunshine World, a specialist in ski packages in Zakopane – had commandeered was an optional throwback targeted squarely at tourists. Visitors can get around more swiftly on public transport or by taxi, and they’ll need to: pretty as Zakopane is, with street after street lined with wooden chalets, it’s far too big to walk around.